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North Korean leader promotes 'blacklisted' sister to inner circle

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has elevated his mysterious younger sister to the inner circle of the country’s top decision-making body, sparking speculation he is tightening the family ranks around his regime.

Kim Yo Jong was made an alternate member of the politburo - the top decision-making body over which her brother presides.

The promotion, which took place at a Workers’ Party convention in Pyongyang over the weekend, makes the 30-year-old the only other millennial member of the influential body.

It also offers an indication Kim Yo Jong has become a replacement for Kim's aunt, Kim Kyong Hee, who had been a key decision maker when former leader Kim Jong Il was alive.

Kim Jong-Un and his younger sister Kim Yo Jong.

"It shows that her portfolio and writ is far more substantive than previously believed and it is a further consolidation of the Kim family's power," said Michael Madden, a North Korea expert at Johns Hopkins University's 38 North website.

Yo Jong was first spotted at a photo shoot standing next to her late father Kim Jong-il and his alleged mistress in September 2010. She also faced much publicity more than a year later in December 2011 at her father’s funeral.

She is seen as the most influential woman in North Korea, only second to Kim Jong Un’s wife, Ri Sol Ju, Bloomberg reports.

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Kim Yo Jong has been a vice director of the party’s propaganda division and was among a group of North Korean officials sanctioned in January by the US Department of the Treasury for “human rights abuses and censorship activities”.

Kim Yo Jong (left) can be seen in the background as North Korea holds military parade for key political anniversary in 2015. (AAP)

“She’s been recognised for the work she’s done in the past year to idolise Kim Jong Un,” South Korean University of North Korean Studies professor Yang Moo-jin told Bloomberg.

RT quotes North Korea Leadership Watch that she is the youngest of three children from Kim Jong-il’s relationship with Ko Yong-hui. There are varying reports regarding her age, with some sources claiming she is 28 while others say she is 30.

Her promotion comes as Jong Un declares his nuclear weapons are a "powerful deterrent" which guarantee North Korea's sovereignty.

The political rhetoric came just hours after US President Donald Trump said "only one thing will work" in dealing with the isolated country.

Trump did not make clear to what he was referring, but his comments seemed to be a further suggestion that military action was on his mind.

In recent weeks, North Korea has launched two missiles over Japan and conducted its sixth nuclear test, and may be fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the US mainland.

North Korea is preparing to test-launch such a missile, a Russian MP who had just returned from a visit to Pyongyang was quoted as saying.